


You're much better looking when you're in disguise

by Cecile



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Actor Stiles, Future Fic, M/M, Military, Secret Agent Stiles, Secret Agent stuff is in chapter 1 and then starts again around chapter 10/11, Spies & Secret Agents, Spy Derek, Spy Stiles, soldier Stiles, sterek later on so bear with me pls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecile/pseuds/Cecile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has established himself as a well-known actor, far away from the trouble he endured during his life in Beacon Hills. But also, he's a secret agent. And so is Derek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Get your game on

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Just Act Normal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/544745) by [zosofi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zosofi/pseuds/zosofi). 



> Hey! I wanna apologize if this fic reminds you strongly of Just Act Natural by zosofi, so please feel free to kick me if it ends up exactly like it. It just got me thinking about the whole Stiles-as-an-actor-stuff and made me wanna put my own twist on it.  
> Also, the first chapter is only the prologue (I spent literally ten minutes debating whether it should be chapter 1 or a prologue), then it goes back in time, so don't worry if stuff doesn't make sense to you yet; I'm adding tags as the story comes along, so check those regularly  
> Enjoy :)  
> Title of the story: from "Surprise, surprise" by Billy Talent  
> Title of the prologue: from "Allstar" by Smash Mouth

_Shit_ , Stiles thought. This had already taken way too long.

What the hell was Derek doing? He'd been talking to that woman for eight and a half minutes and his manager was warning him to finish it off. He'd drove into Stiles that regular interview times for the red carpet were three minutes, no more than four. The only way he'd bee  able to hold the interview for so long was replying eloquently and faking personal interest in the woman.

His manager tapped twice against his right elbow, a sign they had agreed on, meaning "move on, motherfucker, you got more people to talk to". The woman holding the microphone got the gist and said something along the lines of "better not keep you here, people are waiting for you".

Stiles wasn't paying  much attention, though, but he picked up her hand, blowing a kiss on it while making himself blush. His manager practically shoved him a few feet towards the next set of microphone and camera, whispering "found a new love, Stiles?"

He faked a laugh, craning his head as if to take a last look a the interviewer he'd tried to woo. She was beautiful - not for long, though. What he was really looking at were the  rooftops over L.A., shining in the afternoon sun. He tried to find the barrel that would finally save him from this chaos. There always was one at the public events Stiles took part in, only they never shot. But this time it would. Because what's more official than the premiere to Stiles Stilinski's most anticipated movie yet?

Before he found the sniper he was looking for, the next interview began. "Mister Stilinski", a woman his age wearing way too much lip gloss began, "what scene of your new movie do you anticipate the most in terms of the audience's reaction?"

"Well, I can't tell you what's happening in the scene, cause that'd spoil the whole movie",  he joked and then acted like he was seriously thinking about it. He had his answers all laid out - red carpet interviewers always asked the same ten questions - so he took a moment to reflect on what might have happened to the sniper, it should have happened by now. Eventually, he said: "There's this one scene where my character's in a bar, that one I really loved. It's kind of a roller coaster of emotions. We had to reshoot it again and again because like half the cast was drunk and kept messing up. Not me, though", he added jokingly and coaxed a laugh out of the interviewer. "It was really fun. I hope that the audience will-"

Broke off as he heard the sound of a gun go off. Many people around him had heard it to, considering the sudden silence, and after a moment the woman in front of him screamed and fell against Stiles, blood flowing from the backside of her left shoulder.

Stiles was furious.


	2. It'll Be Alright

When Stiles finished High School, he couldn't wait to get out of Beacon Hills. Everybody had treated him nice but there had always been a touch of „you're human you're not really part of the pack“ in the air whenever he was around. He had gotten accepted to a lot of colleges and most of them had granted him a full scholarship so it wasn't a big surprise for anyone that Stiles chose Columbia, at the other side of the USA.

He told them that it was for educational purposes, but if he was honest, Stiles could have gotten the same experiences at Berkeley.

Scott resented him for leaving, but seemed to understand in the end. Because Stiles had gotten so many bruises, scars and broken bones during his years involved in the supernatural and hadn't even received a proper thank you. He had tried reconciling Scott and Derek and was even mostly successful in his actions, but still – the thank you had never come.

Towards the end of senior year, supernatural activity had come to a surprising low which meant more time for school work, dating, and less lies to his Dad.

The Sheriff hadn't been told shit about werewolves and as far as Stiles was concerned, it would stay that way indefinitely. So Stiles got the hell out of there as long as he didn't have to lie.

 

Stiles double-majored in English and Criminology and took on acting as a hobby. He participated in many plays staged by University theater groups, his Dad and Scott even flew out to watch a few of them. Apparently he's good at it. But acting is practically lying and Stiles has been lying to his Dad for the better part of High School, so he's pretty used to it.

Stiles found friends in New York that treated him as an equal and that he could have fun with. The only things he missed about Beacon Hills were his Dad and Scott, but he saw them regularly when they came to visit, so he saw them often enough.

He had contemplated going back over the summer after Freshman year but then he got the lead in a big production of a local theater that would take all his time, so that was that.

The next few years were much the same, by the time senior year arrived he actually had an agent that got him the best roles possible.

 

When his Dad visited, they talked about current cases in Beacon Hills that the Sheriff hadn't been able to solve on his own, so he could consult his son. Stiles could easily detect whether they were just mundane acts of crime or whether some creature had appeared and the Argents and the Beacon Hills pack had made a sloppy attempt at covering it up. Stiles usually left the latter cases alone, not wanting to start lying to his Dad again.

Sometimes they'd sit in a diner for the whole afternoon, discussing cases and town gossip that Stiles had evidently missed out on, but luckily, his Dad never mentioned Derek or any of the other friends that Stiles had left behind.

 

The same went for Scott. He'd talk _a_ bout Allison from time to time, cause they'd become a couple and moved in together, so those stories couldn't be avoided, but that was it. No talks of pack business, what Isaac was doing or if Derek had found a girlfriend, and Stiles was thankful for that.

Scott understood why Stiles wanted to get out of the supernatural business, but at the same time didn't. He got that Stiles didn't want to lie to his Dad and not be involved in the supernatural business anymore, but “Why don't you just tell your Dad? That'll solve everything!” and “Well, we'll just not bother you with it, then!”

No, it would solve nothing. Because if Stiles's Dad knew about werewolves and whatever else goes bump in the night, he'd feel responsible for his town in his position as Sheriff and risk his life to save Beacon Hills. And Stiles didn't want to lose the only family he had left.

And no, the pack would definitely do bother Stiles with their wolfy problems because he was an awesome researcher and/or the others were just to lazy to do it themselves, he couldn't say no to people (especially Derek, and god damn it hadn't that come back to bite him in the ass) and then Stiles'd be back to pack handyman.

So they didn't talk about the why, Scott would just ask him from time to time to come visit back home and every time Stiles would answer “When you finally get your shit together and ask Allison to marry her, I'll come to your wedding. But no sooner.”

 

But as much as Stiles loved acting, he didn't want to let his future BA in criminology go to waste, because he practically lived for solving crimes. Luckily, he had to complete a row of internships at various Police Departments and crime labs during the course of his college education. And that included field work: patrol, interrogation, chasing criminals and the whole shebang. But what Stiles almost loved most was the planning, finding out what to do next, and sneaking around as quietly as possible.

And Stiles was good at it, too. He had to be, because planning and sneaking around (and running away) had been pretty much all he did during his High School time. During the summers, when he wasn't currently occupied with acting, he did various internships along the East Coast and one was even at a small branch of the FBI.

It seemed like being a Sheriff's son opened a lot of doors in that direction, because he was allowed to do stuff that he was certain other interns were not. And he didn't even have to fetch coffee once.

At the end of his three-week internship, the boss (the bossman!) asked him to come into his office to “talk about your future, son”. Well, if that didn't sound ominous.

But when he was seated in front of the Mr. McQuinn, it wasn't to pull a gun and shoot Stiles because he had seen something he shouldn't. Phew.

"Mr. Stilinski, your father is a Sheriff in California, I've heard?", he began.

"Yes, he is", Stiles answered. "And a very good one, I might add."

The boss had chuckled shortly. "I can neither confirm or deny that as I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him. But what I do know is that you, yourself, are extraordinary as well in what you're doing and you're only about to start your Senior year of college, isn't that right?"

"Yes, sir, double-majoring in Criminology and English", Stiles confirmed.

"What an odd combination", the boss mumbled under his breath, but even three years apart from werewolves, Stiles still hadn't lost the habit to listen carefully to all mumbles and breaths and whispers. "How come you're so good at what you're doing?"

"I've always been interested in criminology?", Stiles tried. "Which is why I'm studying it?"

"Because your father is the Sheriff?" When Stiles nods, he continues. "I have met many a Sheriff's son who has not cared at all about their father's work. Actually, most of the people I've met are quite a delinquious."

The boss pauses, and Stiles feels like he's supposed to say something "What are you implying, sir?"

“I've done a bit of a background check on you and your father, Mr. Stilinski, and I have found that he was suspended from the Sheriff's position for a short time in 2011 because of his son appearing at crime scenes, seemingly involved with suspected criminals and already knowing how somebody was murdered before the police even knew there was a murder. That son being you”, the boss concluded.

“Well but he's not suspended anymore. And he's a great Sheriff, which he's proved time and time again”, Stiles tried to convince him.

“I know, and this is not why I asked to talk to you”, the man answered.

“Then what is this about?”, Stiles wanted to know.

“I want to know, out of personal interest, why your name appears so often in the Beacon Hills criminal records for what I think was your sophomore year, then not at all for a couple of months, and then at a new high at the beginning of September 2011, frequency lowering until your graduation.”

“I don't know? Coincidence?”, Stiles answered.

“Don't lie to me, boy!” The boss hit the desk with his fist, almost knocking over an empty cup.

“Well, I just wanted to find out what was happening since my Dad wouldn't tell me. And my Dad wouldn't let me help even when he knew I could”, Stiles confessed. Well, it was the truth. Maybe not the complete truth, but most of it. The boss of a branch of the FBI didn't have to know that Stiles Stilinski had been involved with werewolves, heck, that there even were werewolves.

The man let out a heavy sigh. “If only my boy had been like that. But he doesn't care about my job. Tried so hard to get him interested, but all he wants to be is an actor.”

“Hey, don't mob acting”, Stiles interrupted. “That's one of my hobbies and you can actually make quite a bit of money if you're good at it.” At the raised eyebrow he got, Stiles added, “Sorry, Sir.”

“Well are you?”, the boss wanted to know, “Good at it, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess, performed quite a bit since coming to New York”, Stiles said. “Though I still don't know why you wanted to talk to me?”

“I think you'd be a good secret agent. Give you a cover up job and deploy you whenever necessary”, the boss proposed.

“Do you mean, like, 'James Bond' secret agent or 'cool name but only does paper work all day long' secret agent?”, Stiles inquired. He tried to keep his face blank, but he was flipping out on the inside.

“I mean 'leads a double life and nobody knows about his secret identity' secret agent”, the boss answered and Stiles couldn't help but let out a startled laugh.

“That'd be totally cool”, Stiles admitted. “Never gonna happen, though.”

Mr. McQuinn seemed baffled. “And why's that, son?”

Stiles fought the urge to roll his eyes. “'Cause I'm obviously never gonna be lucky enough to get into training. With how my life has been so far, chances are that I'm gonna be struck by a lightning the first day even if I do get in. Also, my Dad would never let me do it”, Stiles added.

“Boy, that's why it's called _secret_ agent.”

 

They talked a bit more and apparently Mr McQuinn really wanted him as a secret agent for his branch of the FBI and Stiles was bouncing around so much that he hit the door jamb with his head once or twice.

Stiles didn't decide anything at all right away and the bossman had told him to really think about it because it'd be a decision he couldn't reverse. Stiles had been told to finish his last year of college and in April they'd see each other again, talk about his future.

During his senior year, Stiles performed in a few more plays in and around the city and studied hard and partied and thought hard about his future and dated and carried on a few vague conversations with his Dad and Scott about what he should do and partied and dated some more. Because outside of Beacon Hills the ratio of human to unbelievably hot supernatural was much more to Stiles's favor and it seems like he's turned into a quite attractive young fellow.

It's either this or his flailing and _sparkling personality_ are just such a ladies (and guys) magnet.

After Stiles's last performance as a college student, he, Scott and the Sheriff sat in Stiles's apartment and philosophized about life, the universe and everything. After a while, the Sheriff clunked out on Stiles's bed and the boys lay next to each other on the pull-out couch they'd been sharing during the visit.

Scott asked: “So, what are you gonna do when you're done with college?”

Stiles furrowed an eyebrow. “I'm sorry Scott, but this has by far been the dumbest question you've ever asked me.”

Scott furrowed an eyebrow right back. “No it's not”, he said, like he'd been thinking about this. “This is a legitimate question.” A pause, then: “You studied criminology and are really good at it, too, you even said that the FBI branch where you interned last summer offered you a job as a field agent or something-”

“Field detective, actually”, that's what Stiles had told them. Because saying _yo Dad I've been offered a job as a secret agent with just as much action and guns and wounds as there is on TV_ wouldn't have made that great of an impression on the Sheriff, Stiles was sure of that.

“Field detective, yes”, Scott confirmed. “But you're also really acing this acting business and it's really hard to make a name but you've somehow been able to do exactly that.”

“Crazy, right?”, Stiles sat up halfway to take a sip of his beer.

“It is. I'm proud of you, man.” They clanked their bottles against each other and then sat in silence, drinking their beverage and listening to the city noises coming from outside.

After a while, Scott tried again. “So what's it gonna be: acting or crime-fighting?”

“I'd love to do both”, Stiles said, honestly.

“Yeah, you know I love you, but you know that nobody's gonna take a cop seriously that also appears on TV as a clumsy sidekick”, Scott amended.

“What are you talking about?”, Stiles turned toward his friend. “I'd totally be the star of the show, I'd never be the clumsy sidekick!” He'd intended it as a joke, but then remembered that his High School life had been exactly that: always the clumsy, sarcastic sidekick that was only tolerated because he had good ideas once in a while. Stiles had had a life time's fill of clumsy sidekick.

They were silent for a few moments, eventually Stiles said: “I guess I'll try crime-fighting and if that fails me, acting will be my plan B.”

Scott raises an eyebrow. “I guess most people would do it exactly the other way around, but whatever floats your boat, man.”

They smile at each other and Stiles was sure that he'd made the right decision. All that was left now was talking to Mr. McQuinn about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Summer in the City" by Joe Jackson (I think).  
> This is unbeta'd; I've taken it on as my CampNaNoWriMo novel. Also kinda bummed out about the ending cause I had kinda laid out a plan for the ending of each chapter, but whatever :/
> 
> I've rewritten this chapter, you can find the originally published verion [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/867376).


	3. I do the best I can

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather short but I found the chapter ending was at a good place.  
> still unbeta'd, still part of CampNaNo so forgive me any mistakes. Also, I know nothing about police training in the US and what titles there are and whatnot so please don't get worked up about my mistakes :)
> 
> Chapter title is a derivation of the line "Uncle Sam does the best he can" from the song "In the Army now" by Status Quo

Stiles became a secret agent. He spent the year after college in a secret training base learning everything necessary for long distance as well as close-combat. The only contact he had with Scott, his Dad and friends from college was via telephone, and even then calls were only allowed on the weekends, and only a set amount of minutes.

Stiles kind of understood that it was a precaution measure – if a double-agent had gotten into the base, they'd only have a restricted time period to forward their collected information if they wanted to remain undercover.

For Stiles, though, it was kind of hard. Not the being on his own part, no. He'd gotten used to that fairly early after he'd moved to New York, but rather the part where he had to assure Scott and his Dad of his well-being.

“You should call more often”, the Sheriff said during one particular Sunday afternoon call. Well, it was Sunday afternoon where Stiles was, wherever that was, but who knows what time it was in Beacon Hills? His Dad sounded happy and awake enough, though, so it probably wasn't the middle of the night.

“Yeah, I know”, Stiles gave in. “But I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because...”, Stiles realizes that he's about to start lying to his father again. He might as well go back to Beacon Hills, then. So he tries to put as much truth into his statement as he can. “I always have to get up super early and there's barely any free time. And when I'm done for the day, I'm just always so exhausted that I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the mattress. The superiors don't want us slacking off, I guess.”

“Really? That's not how I remember police academy”, his Dad said and Stiles could just tell from his tone that he was raising a suspicious eyebrow at him from the other end of the line.

“That's because your experience with police academy is thirty years old”, Stiles said. “They've changed things up a bit since.”

“Are you implying that I'm old?”

“No! Of course not! What? Pssh!”

Stiles heard a snort and couldn't keep from smiling at that, himself. “Plus, you were training for a deputy. A field detective needs a completely different set of skills.”

“All right, all right”, the Sheriff amended. “Just don't exhaust yourself. And try not to kill anyone while you're there”, he said with a hint of a smile in his voice.

But that sentence made Stiles freeze in place. “What?”, he asked with blankly, trying to keep all of his emotions out of his voice. Had his father found out... did he know that Stiles...?

No. He couldn't. Otherwise he wouldn't be talking to Stiles so happily.

But-?

“That was a joke”, the Sheriff drawled.

Stiles let out a sigh of relief

“Stiles? Are you okay?” Great. Now there was concern in the Sheriff's voice.

“Yeah Dad, I'm fine.”

“Alright, I need to get to the station, one of the deputies is sick. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye!”

Stiles put the phone away and ran a hand through his hair.

The Sheriff was to never find out about what Stiles had done in senior year.


	4. That's Why I'm Drumming It Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd, please forgive my mistakes.  
> Title comes from "I Couldn't Care Less" by leslie Clio.

Stiles had no idea how Miranda, his agent, did it, but she managed to get him the lead role for a play at a small theater in New York City. Yes, she'd done so plenty while Stiles was still in college. But now he wasn't. Actually, he'd been gone for over a year, unheard of by everyone except his Dad and Scott.

And Stiles knew how hard the acting business was said to be: if you weren't actively starring in a play or starring in a show or movie, you were either instantly forgotten until the end of time or thrown into a dark abyss full of would-be actors that try to crawl their way back to fame through some reality show or anti-zit commercials. But with Stiles never having been famous at all outside New York, he'd have no chance making a comeback as an actor.

But somehow Miranda pulled it off. Stiles guessed she'd also had to pull off and arm and a leg and offer it as a gift to the gods of the acting business, but when he asked how she'd done it, she just waved him off and said “Just had to mention your name, honey, and you practically already had the part.”

And Stiles was baffled by that. But it was nice to hear that somebody obviously thought he was a good enough actor to remember after a year of inactivity. He'd been initially scared to get into contact with Miranda after his year of super secret secret agent training because he'd told her that he would stop acting to become a cop and therefore not need her services anymore.

She'd said that she was just waiting for him to call. “I knew you're too smart to waste your life being a cop.”

“Whow, there's nothing wrong with being a cop.” Stiles felt the need to defend the honor of his Dad and every other police officer in existence.

“For others not, but with your talent, honey, it'd be a shame.”

A few days later she'd called him back and sent him to a couple of auditions and somehow he and Miranda ended up being the ones having to decide. At which theater to work, that is.

Five weeks later and well into the rehearsals for _Over My Dead Gnome_ (Stiles had read the script, it was actually way better than the title led on – and he wasn't just advertising for his play whenever he told somebody that, it really was!) and he still couldn't believe it. The opening night was just a couple weeks away and right now he was being interviewed – interviewed, holy shit! – by Mark, some artsy hipster wearing plaid and trucker hats that reminded Stiles strangely of himself, only that the Mark could actually pull the outfit off.

Also, he made publicity for the play on a local radio station, so Stiles wasn't going to judge.

“So, Mister Stilinski-”, he said.

“Call me Stiles. I'm what? Maybe three years older than you? Don't make me seem like I'm an old grandpa”, Stiles interrupted.

“Sure, Stiles”, Mark tested the name. “Your name was pretty prominent a while back, but then you seemed to be wiped of the face of the earth the past year. Or at least, the face of the acting world. What were you doing during that time and why did you decide to come back to acting?”

Stiles pretended to think about the question, as if he'd have to think of an answer from the top of his head. These kinds of questions, though, he'd been instructed to prepare answers for (and he had), because he couldn't let slip that he'd been in training for super secret governmental affairs, for obvious reasons. “I tried being a cop, follow my father's footsteps – he's a Sheriff, you know. I was at police academy and actually hadn't planned on continuing my acting career. Don't think the criminals would take me so seriously if I played a goofy kid talking to lawn gnomes on the weekends”, he added jokingly.

“What made you change your mind?”, Mark inquired.

“I don't know, I guess it wasn't really my thing.” Lie. “Wasn't really that good at it.” Lie. Again. He'd been great at it. “Once, I nearly shot myself in the foot.” One truth for two lies. His score needed to get better.

“Ouch, that would make many a man change his opinion of becoming an officer of a law.” Mark winced sympathetically.

Actually, it had been a test for Stiles's bravery, coordination and skill. He was supposed to shoot as close to his foot as possible without actually hitting it. He'd been very successful, the heat of the bullet melting a bit of the sole of the sneaker he had been wearing, but the bullet not actually touching any part of Stiles or Stiles's clothing. His superior had been immensely proud of him and it was probably the best day of his time in boot camp, as twisted as it might be. He'd spent the night celebrating with a couple of acquaintances in a bar and trying to forget where exactly he had learned to fire a weapon so precisely, because it sure hadn't come from the camp.

“Well, here I am now”, Stiles concluded, ready to move on, and maybe actually talk about his play.

“Okay, moving on” – thank you, Mark – “Tell us a bit about _Over My Dead Gnome_ ”.

“Well, I can't really tell you all that much because I don't want to spoil it”, Stiles began, but then went on when Mark nudged the microphone further towards him. “I'm playing Bob, a guy who moves to the city and seems to be seeing lawn gnomes everywhere and then suddenly one of them starts talking to him.”

He stopped and watched amused as Mark made a confused face and let out a noise that Stiles was sure meant _there's a part missing here tell me the part wait what if that's all please don't let that be all it'll be so boring I don't want to promote this shitty play_.

“That's it. That's the story”, Stiles dead-panned just to mess with Mark, and he wasn't disappointed. Judging by Mark's expression, his world had just come crashing down.

“What?”, the interviewer squeaked. “You can't be serious!”

“Are you kidding me? That'd be the worst play ever.” He paused and then said: “Actually, that'd be really great. I'd pay good money to see that realized as a play. Maybe in a few decades, when I'm rich and famous.”

“You're already famous now”, Mark inserted and made Stiles flail his arms while blushing.

“Aww, stop it, you.”

They laughed and then went on. “So, what's the play really about?”

“First of all, there really are lawn gnomes appearing out of nowhere. And a guy called Bob, played by me. But the thing with the gnomes is because Bob falls in love with a girl, Lisa whose only possession is a battered-up lawn gnome that she keeps talking to because she doesn't have any other friends. So of course he buys her tons of creepy figurines instead of talking to her, but he puts a message into each one and gets a message back each day. But the thing is: Lisa has no clue of Bob's messages even existing. So the question is: who's sending the messages?”

“Who is?”, Mark is practically hanging off his every word which Stiles finds ridiculous.

“I guess you'll have to find out for yourself”, he concluded dramatically. He's sure that he could have thought of a better description and cliffhanger, but Josh, the director, had instructed all the actors to describe the play along the lines of what Stiles had just said.

“I guess we really do. _Over My Dead Gnome_ comes out in two weeks in Marshall Newman's Theater, I hope many of you come by to see our favorite Stiles Stilinski in the lead. We're here with the man himself on Radio CoBa and we'll be back after this next song.”

Wow, Stiles had completely forgotten that the interview was live.

Mark pressed a few buttons and Stiles could hear an indie song playing over the headphones he was wearing. The host took them off, so Stiles slid them off his ears as well.

Mark got up and walked to a small coffee machine. “Want some coffee?”

“No thanks, I'm good.”

Mark poured himself a cup and downed it in one go, just to pour another one and take it to his seat in front of the microphone and putting his headphones back over his ears, so Stiles did the same just as the song fade out.

“And now we're back in the CoBa studio with Mister Stiles Stilinski, lead role of the upcoming play _Over My Dead Gnome_ over at Marshall Newman's Theater”, the man introduced. “Stiles, you're surprisingly easy to talk to.”

“It's probably because I generally talk a lot. If you just give me a topic and enough time I can go on and on about it for hours if I have to”, Stiles laughs.

“So you're a quick thinker?”

“Sure.”

“Cool, we'll play an impromptu game of association chain. Basically, I start with a word and you'll just have to say the first thing that pops into your head, then we go back and forth”, the host explains. “You ready?”

“Shoot.”

“We'll start with... coffee.”

“Beans”, Stiles shot back the obvious answer.

“Food.”

“Wow, food. That was a pretty far skip from beans that you took there, my friend”, Stiles said, dead-pan. “Cutlery.”

“Silver.”

“Mountain Ash.”

And Stiles regretted it as soon as he said it, he opened his eyes widely in shock and clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to get it back.

“Looks like Stiles said something he didn't want to. What's mountain ash anyway? Never heard of it. A sort of tobacco? A drug?”, Mark dug deeper.

“What? No! It's not a drug!”, Stiles tried to perform damage-control.

Mark smirked. “You're pretty flustered. Must be some really bad stuff.”

“I keep telling you, it's not a drug”, Stiles was desperate now. Damn. His career was going to end before it had completely restarted, just because Stiles couldn't keep his mouth shut. _Mountain Ash_. How had that even come out?

“So? What is it then? Enlighten us”, Mark was seemingly enjoying this. Getting an inside scoop or something. _You heard it first on Radio CoBra_ , Stiles could already hear him say.

“It's a kind of tree. Lore says its ash is supposed to keep werewolves away.” It wasn't just lore. It really worked and had saved Stiles's life too many times to count.

What he said wrung a laugh out of Mark. “How did you find that out?”

“I have ADHD – or had it, I've mostly grown out of it, now – and spent nights on Wikipedia reading anything remotely interesting”, Stiles said. “And I had a werewolf phase in high school.”

“You're about as old as me, so wasn't that around the time when _Twilight_ was current?”, Mark inquired.

“Yeah”, Stiles confirmed, but didn't add anything else. They'd conclude that he'd been into _Twilight_ which was kind of sad to be associated with, but it was definitely better than anything else the three listeners of this radio show might come up with.

“All right.” Mark clapped his hands, he was apparently ready to move on to a different topic. “We've got a few audience calls. People are waiting for you to answer some of your questions, our phone lines are nearly bursting with calls.”

“I doubt _two people_ means bursting with calls”, Stiles interjected jokingly.

“You see that number over there?” Mark pointed at a monitor that was hung up on a wall, showing stats. “That's how many people are listening. And the one below? That's how many people are trying to ask you questions.”

Stiles swallowed audibly. “I take it back. Those are some pretty big numbers.”

Why anyone would listen to Stiles talk about a play was beyond him.

“Our first call comes from Isabelle. Isabelle, can you hear us?” Mark pushed a few buttons and when the girl responded with “yes, hi!”, he made a gesture urging Stiles to take the call.

“Hey, it's Stiles, how are you?”, he asked.

Isabelle seemed to instantly light up. “Oh my God, hey Stiles! I'm great!”

“That's good”, Stiles smiled.

“What's your question?”, Mark asked.

“My question is”, she drawled, probably wanting to get as much time on air as possible. “do you have a girlfriend, Stiles?”

“Starting right off with the important questions, I see”, Mark grinned and Stiles let out a laugh.

After he calmed down, Stiles said: “No, I don't have a girlfriend at the moment.”

Not since college, he'd barely had any time to himself the past year, but strangely enough, he hadn't missed the bodily contact.

Mark dug deeper. “What about a boyfriend?”

Stiles rolled his eyes at the man. “No boyfriend, either.” After a beat Stiles added: “I'm completely single, ready for you to have your wicked way with me.”

He heard a squeak in his headphones, undoubtedly coming from Isabelle.

“Just for the record,” Mark laughed, “Stiles just waggled his eyebrows at the monitor with your Caller ID.”

“Oh, now I can die happy”, Isabelle sighed.

“Don't die before you've seen my new play!”, Stiles interjected, trying to keep the mood light before he fell into a hole and thought of death.

“Are you gonna come to the premiere of _Over My Dead Gnome_?”, Mark wanted to know.

“Of course, I already got front row tickets!”, Isabelle exclaimed excitedly.

“Sweet, I'll see you there!”, Stiles answered. “Bye, Isabelle!”

The call ended and they moved on to other audience calls, answering a total of ten audience questions. Some wanted to know about his personal life – “I don't really have one, actually, I just hang around the computer or Xbox all day and night” – , others asked about his acting.

It was loads of fun for Stiles and after they were done with the calls, Mark concluded the interview. “Thanks for coming today, Stiles. How'd you like it?”

“Thanks for having me! It was great. I can't believe so many people would want to know stuff about me, though. Are you sure your audience counter isn't broken?” Stiles was _sure_ that the number shouldn't be quite so high.

“Nope, it's right. This is the biggest audience we've ever had, all thanks to you.”

“I'll be sure to stop by some time again soon, shouldn't I?”, Stiles said.

“Of course! Stiles Stilinski, everybody, his new play _Over My Dead Gnome_ premieres Friday two weeks from now at Marshall Newman's theater. Other showings are over the course of the next two months, be sure to check it out!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theater and name+story of the play are totally made up, I don't know anything about New York or radio stations.  
> It'll still take some time for Derek to come to the story, so please forgive me because I can't tell you how long.  
> I'm always happy about comments :)


	5. Two Bottles of Whiskey For The Way

_Over My Dead Gnome_ was a huge success. Tickets had been sold out on the day that Stiles had the interview on Radio CoBa. And with _tickets_ Stiles means _tickets for all shows_. The theater had added a couple more showings but the tickets also sold like hot cakes.

Stiles had his Dad and Scott fly out for the premiere, he hadn't seen either of them for over a year after all. They sat front center and even through the glare of the lights Stiles could see his best friend grinning excitedly at him.

During the staging, one of the other actors had spilled a glass of water on Stiles's pants and he had to perform throughout the final act with water soaking uncomfortably into his underwear, but otherwise the opening night couldn't have gone better. It received fifteen curtains – that's about twelve more than during his peek times at college.

Stiles had wanted Dad and Scott to come to the second showing because it wasn't as crazy as the premiere and he could actually come see them immediately after, but they had insisted. “Most stuff goes wrong during the premiere, do you think I'd miss you tripping and falling off stage?”, Scott had said.

So he had given them the spare key to his apartment for them to find home alone, and Stiles felt immediately like a bad host, but was relieved about that decision because he was surrounded by people the moment he stepped out of his dressing room, wearing ratty sweats, a shirt that may or may not have a soda stain on it, and a hoodie that had seen far better days. That was topped off by the big hipster scarf his Dad had forced on him.

“Holy shit!”, he exclaimed and wanted to do nothing more than to close the door again. But he couldn't. He had promised to see the theater's manager and some other important people and go out for drinks with his cast mates afterward.

“Oh my God, Stiles, you were so good!”, someone nearly yells in his ear and has him flinching back, with his head hitting the door.

Stiles winces and rubs what's soon to become a bruise and is then hit by lightning. No, not lightning, just someone using the flash on his camera.

He's immediately blinded and has to blink for a few seconds in order to see again and he thinks he steps on someone's foot. “Shit, sorry!”

He steps back from the door and the crowd pools around him, someone shoves a notepad and pen in his face, says “Can you sign this, please? You were awesome!”

He does exactly that and hands it back.

“Mister Stilinski, great performance!”, someone else yells. That was probably a reporter. Stiles is twenty-four, nobody would address him by his last name other than a pretentious journalist. Stiles says thanks anyway and smiles, because he is genuinely happy about the positive feedback, he had been scared it would be a total flop, the plot of the play was daring, after all. The reporter goes on. “Was the spilled water in the final act on purpose? You seemed really surprised.”

“Uh, yeah”, Stiles said, while signing a couple more autographs. Holy shit, he was signing autographs. This was so great. He would never have expected that. Wow. “Yeah, let's go with that.”

“Can I have a picture with you?”, a girl, maybe sixteen by the looks of it, asked.

“Sure, come here!”, be beckoned her to stand with him and pulls an arm around her shoulder, smiling at the camera that a woman, probably her mother, points at them.

“Thank you so much!”, she turned toward him after the picture has been taken. “I was sitting in the first row, did you see me?”

“No, honey, I'm sorry”, he said. He'd barely been able to make out his Dad and Scott, nevertheless a total stranger. “I couldn't really see anything because of the lights.”

“That's okay”, she sighs. “You were awesome, I'd go and see it again right now if I could! Bye!” The girl waved at him before she was dragged away by the other woman.

A few more pictures were taken, a few more autographs were signed, a few more questions were answered, before Stiles made a show of glancing at his bare arm and saying: “Wow, would you look at the time. Sorry guys, but I really need to go. It was nice meeting you guys!”

He squeezed through the crowd that only reluctantly let him go and all but ran to Mister Duncan's, the manager, office.

When he finally entered the room, there were six people in there besides the man himself, one of them being his female co-star, J.J. Melville. He had no idea who the other people were, but Stiles was sure he'd be introduced to them any second.

“Sorry, got held up”, he waves a hand awkwardly and closes the door behind him, focus of all the people on him. While he had no problem with that on stage, Stiles felt vaguely uncomfortable in this room.

“There you are, Bobby, we've just been waiting for you.” Mister Duncan has a glass of champagne in his hand – didn't people usually drink that before they saw a play?

“My name's Stiles”, Stiles explained quietly. “Bobby's just my character, you know?”

“Of course I know that, son!”, he emitted a bellowing laugh. “Let's take some pictures for the press!”

As if he'd been summoned through a pentagram, a photographer with a huge camera seemed to appear out of nowhere and urged Stiles towards Mr. Duncan and J.J.. Who were wearing a suit and nice dress respectively. _Great clothing choice, Stilinski_.

J.J. seemed to notice his hesitation and made a _come here_ -gesture with her hand with a fond roll of her eyes. He followed and she immediately took off his scarf, righted the flaps of his hoodie and then looped the scarf back around his neck, draping it artistically on his shoulder.

“Thank you”, Stiles whispered when she was done and made a kissy face at which she just smiled. They took their places, each on one side of Mr. Duncan. A couple of photos were made of the three, then some more of only Stiles and J.J..

Stiles learned that the other people in the room were apparently really important but he couldn't bring himself to remember their names, he'd just forget them anyway after his drinking binge later that night. They held some polite chit chat and Stiles was silently asking himself what he was doing there and tried not to let his relief show, when the meet was wrapped up half an hour later.

Stiles and J.J. stepped out of the office and he gestured vaguely into the direction of the bar their other co-stars had headed off to. “You ready to go?”

“We gotta go to my dressing room, change out of this thing.” J.J. tugged at the seam of her dress with a look of distaste. “Come along?”

“Damn, I should have thought of that, too”, Stiles said, gesturing at the fancy dress himself.

“Nah, you look cute like that. I'd totally go for you if I hadn't seen you rip off a toe nail with your teeth last week”, she joked as they made the way to the changing rooms.

“It was an emergency!”, Stiles tried to defend himself.

“How is an ingrown toenail an emergency?”, she inquires with a fondly raised eyebrow.

“You mean: How _isn't_ an ingrown toenail an emergency? Do you want my foot to start bleeding all over the stage in that barefoot scene in act two? I bet someone – most likely me- would slip and fall horribly to their death. And that's the end of Stiles's poor acting career”, he whispered in a conspiring tone.

They reached J.J.'s dressing room and headed inside, her disappearing immediately into the bathroom.

“You just talk and talk and talk, don't you?”, she called through the door.

“Dude, shut up, I'm not talking to you while you're peeing”, he yelled back and got a laugh in return.

“I'm just changing, you dick!”

Stiles dug his hand into a pocket of his hoodie to grab his phone. It had been dutifully switched to airplane mode as the signals often interfered with the sound equipment, so when he put it back into normal mode, his phone was bombarded with tons of texts and he received a notice that he had three missed calls: two by his Dad, one by Scott and another two by Miranda.

He quickly flew over the texts by those three and various other people he knew that had come out to the premiere. They were mostly positive except for Scott who mostly just tried to rile him up about the accident with the spilled water. Stiles was happy that he hadn't been able to pick that phone call up.

He shot a few answering texts back to everyone, thanking everyone for their praise and then debated whether he could still call his Dad, but then he saw that it was already 1 AM and Dad must be asleep by now or at least really grumpy because he hadn't fallen asleep yet.

“Hurry up a bit or we won't leave this place before last call!”, he yelled in the direction of the bathroom.

J.J. stepped out and was dressed in skinny jeans, a tight tank top and a plaid shirt, she was clutching a jacket in her hand and had a small bag slung over her shoulder.

“Wow, you look like a female version of what I wear most days”, Stiles noted as they went to the back exit of the theater.

“You wear my dirty laundry most days?”, J.J. shot back.

“No”, Stiles drawled. “I wear my own laundry most days, I don't think yours would quite fit me.”

“Yeah, it would probably be too wide, especially around the boob area”, she teased.

“I'll have you know that I can produce an excellent pair of boobs if I just want to!”

They reached the door and J.J. took his wrist and dragged him towards the subway station with a “Come on, or you're responsible if we miss last call!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Where have you guys been so long?”, Matt said when Stiles and J.J. finally reach the bar they had set as meet-up place. He was the director of the play and usually painfully sober – they hadn't even been able to talk him into a shot of courage before the staging – but now he seemed pretty tipsy and judging by the glasses in front of him well into his fifth beer.

“Talking with Duncan and the sponsors, press photos and Stiles here seemed to have a pretty big crowd of fans in front of his dressing room”, J.J. explained, pointing at Stiles during the last part.

“You were great man, you're gonna be a star!”, Jane chirped in, she had a minor part in the play.

“I guess you were okay”, Matt amended.

They sat down and ordered a beer. Stiles didn't want to get full on what-happened-last-night-drunk because they had rehearsals the next day and Stiles got grumpy when he had a hangover, but he still wanted to get a little tipsy with his colleagues. “Hey, why weren't you in Duncan's office after the play?”, he asked Matt.

“Don't like press stuff”, he sighed, then continued: “Gonna do my part tomorrow morning.”

“You're a director. How do you not like press stuff?”, another one of their group chirped in and Stiles toasted with the others when his drink arrived.

Soon, the world became a beautiful place, but after three beers Stiles headed home to his apartment where his Dad was sleeping in the guest room and Scott had crawled onto his bed. Stiles took of his shoes, scarf and hoodie and crawled under the blankets next to Scott.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from the Cups Song/When I'm gone from Pitch Perfect :)  
> Comments are always appreciated!


	6. I Believe In Me

„Yo, Wet pants McGee, get up”, someone said and kicked Stiles against the shin. Judging by the sound of the voice, it was Scott.

“Don't wanna”, Stiles mumbled and buried his face in his pillow. His head didn't really hurt – a nice surprise – but he still didn't like to be woken up with the sun shining in his face.

“Come on, it's already 1 PM!”, Scott said and Stiles startled, immediately wide awake.

“Shit! I was supposed to be at the theater at 11!”

He jumped out of bed and was about to run towards the bathroom when he was stopped by the grin on Scott's face. It slowly dawned on him.

Stiles looked at the alarm clock and it read 9AM. “Oh, you bastard!”, he mumbled and went to the bathroom anyway.

“I love you, too!”, Scott yelled back and Stiles slammed the door shut in retaliation.

Fifteen minutes later, Stiles was showered, tended and in fresh clothes. He went to the living room, where Scott and his Dad were sitting at a table having breakfast.

“Gee, thanks for waiting on me”, Stiles said as a good morning.

“Stiles!”, the Sheriff got out of his chair and gave his son a bear hug. “Well done! I'm so proud of you.”

For getting out of bed?

Oh. The play. Yeah.

“I'm proud of me, too, Dad”, Stiles said and hugged back.

They stepped back from each other and Stiles grabbed the plate full of pancakes that one of the others had made.

“You were really good, Stiles!”, Scott commented. “Especially when you wet your pants.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. He should have insisted they saw the second showing. That wouldn't have happened at the second showing. “Not my fault.”

“Still funny”, Scott declared before stuffing his mouth full of pancake.

“No it wasn't.”

“It kinda was”, his Dad chirped in.

“Dad, you're supposed to be on my side! What else are you for?”, Stiles complained.

The Sheriff didn't dignify him with a response, only ate some more pancake. Stiles was still tired, though, and didn't even think about taking away the unhealthy breakfast.

“By the way, I went and got the newspaper today”, Scott said when they had finished eating and promptly dropped said paper on Stiles's empty plate.

Stiles couldn't hold back a grin and the “I'm so proud of you, Fido!”

Scott just rolled his eyes and his Dad made a confused face, not knowing why Stiles found that lame joke so funny, but then grinned himself and said: “Page 10.”

“What's on page 10?”, Stiles wanted to know and rifled through the paper curiously.

On page 10, a photo of him and J.J. in the final scene of the play was shown. “Holy crap, I'm in the paper!”, Stiles shouted happily.

“I know!”, Scott shouted back, just as excited. “Read it!”

Stiles quickly skimmed the article that pretty much sang the praises to Matt and the theater for choosing “such an astounding young actor with great talent and obviously a bright future ahead”.

All in all, it was a really positive critique, even if they also mentioned the water mishap – “in the last scene one of the actors spilled liquid over the lead's pants which forced Mr. Stilinski to finish the play with wet pants, but as our journalist's eye-witness account showed, the women seemed to really enjoy that part”.

“What?!”, Stiles squeaked out when he read that part and blushed furiously.

“I can't believe you dressed like a homeless person for the press photo, though”, his Dad said, with a somewhat fond tone in his voice.

Stiles looked appreciatively at one of the smaller photos that showed him, J.J. and Mr. Duncan in the manager's office. He was impressed with how J.J. had made him look like a cool hipster with the way his scarf was draped. “Wow, I do look cute in that photo, I'd totally do me!”

“Stiles.” His Dad sighed.

“This is totally cool! This is cool, isn't it?”, Stiles yelled and promptly received a shouted “Shut the fuck up!” from his downstairs neighbor.

“I'm proud of you, son”, the Sheriff repeated with a big smile. “I'm just sad you didn't become a cop after all. I mean you were at police academy for a year...”, he trailed off.

Stiles sighed. They had a long talk about it before but he wasn't surprised that it came up again. “Dad, come on, I nearly shot myself in the foot. Do you really think I should become a cop? I'd be a hazard for society!”

The Sheriff sighed. “I know you're not that bad at firing a gun. Remember the first time I took you to the shooting range when you were nine?”

Stiles's Mom had protested for hours the day before, but when they returned she let Stiles tell her everything about it and how cool it had been and that he was finally actually good at something.

Apparently his gaze had become distant or whatever, because Scott nudged him with his foot and Stiles startled. “You okay, buddy?”

“Son, what kind of game are you playing at?”, his Dad wanted to know, now in full-on Sheriff mode.

“None, I swear! And I also swear that I really _did_ nearly shoot myself in the foot!” Stiles is nearly shouting now, so he calms his voice and adds: “And can we not talk about that fail of a career choice and rather celebrate a good critique for my first play as a full-time actor?”

 

* * *

 

 

Two days later, Scott and the Sheriff went back to Beacon Hills. They had also seen the second staging of _Over My Dead Gnome_ – God knows why – and Scott voiced his deep disappointment about Stiles not spilling water all over himself this time.

The next two months went by quickly; every day from Monday to Friday were rehearsals and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were stagings. In between, there were sometimes interviews with small newspapers and theater magazines but those got less frequent as they got to the last few performances.

Only a few people came to Stiles's backstage door after the premiere and he was utterly thankful for that. He didn't want to ruin their impression of the guy on stage by coming out of the dressing room wearing ratty shirts and sweats. But he was still impressed by the fact that people actually wanted his autograph, wanted him to write his name on a piece of paper in his handwriting that looked like a kindergartener using a crayon with his left hand.

Stiles knew it wasn't supposed to go that fast. It was supposed to be years and years of long, hard work as an extra, understudy, one-liner and then maybe a minor role or two before someone would actually start recognizing his name. Sure, Stiles had acted all throughout college, but who actually went and saw those plays? Nobody, that's who. Stiles certainly hadn't heard of anybody if he didn't bodily drag them to one of his plays.

But maybe Stiles was just that great of an actor and people liked to watch him. Yeah, right.

 

* * *

 

 

After the last performance, Stiles went out with his now former cast-mates and crew and they got hopelessly drunk. Well, the others did. He mostly stuck to beer and coke; who knew what he might talk about if he lost himself.

Stiles had been positively surprised that tickets were sold out for most of the shows; he knew that usually there would be fewer and fewer people in the audience towards the last stagings.

Two days after the last show, he was recognized on the streets by a girl. She had asked for his autograph and a picture with him. They chatted for a few minutes, Stiles being forever greatful for the positive comments she made on his performances.

“Seriously man, I saw you like three years ago in some college play and have seen every single one of your plays since then!”, she exclaimed. “I was so happy when I found out you were gonna perform again.”

“How did you find out, anyway?”, Stiles asked.

“Uh... well”, she stammered. “My Mom kinda works with someone who knows someone who works at the Marshall Newman's theater.”

“That's a long chain of news”, he commented.

“Yeah, I kinda put my antennas out and told everybody who heard of your name to tell me immediately.” She blushed. That was cute. Stiles was fascinated by the fact that someone would take such interest in him.

Well, plenty of people, usually bad supernatural things, had taken interest in him during the better part of his High School life, but not quite so positively.

He glanced at his watch and said: “Nice talking to you, but listen, I really need to go or I'll be late for a meeting.”

“Aww, too bad”, she said. Then she gave him a folded up piece of paper and continued: “I know you're like seven years older than me and you're probably gonna think I'm weird but I think you're cool and I really like you. We could be great friends! Here's my number!”

“So call me maybe?”, he half-sang, reminded of that song by Carly Rae Jepsen that was so popular during his senior year of High School.

“What?”, she said.

“Nothing”, he chuckled.

He put the note in his back pocket and told her he'd think about it, then they said goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Unbeta'd, as always.  
> If you wanna join me on tumblr, I'm <http://heavens-home.tumblr.com>.  
> Also, if you think I should add some tags, let me know :)  
> Chapter title is from "I Can Do Anything" by Caleigh Peters


	7. My Pain, Your Thrill

He had a meeting that day with Miranda and they talked about how they were going to further his career. Apparently many important people were interested in Stiles and wanted to work with him. She asked him if he wanted to shoot a commercial and he answered truthfully that he was generally open to it.

“Great!”, she said. “So, I have this tampon commercial that-”

“You do know that I don't have a vagina, right?”, Stiles inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Miranda only rolled her eyes. “Yes, honey, I know that. But it's supposed to be empowering for women. You know how girls always complain about tampon commercials not portraying how they really feel on their period?”

“Not really”, Stiles interrupted, but Miranda barreled right on.

“The company told me the basic plot, it's really cool. It's features a woman in an apocalyptic setting, slaying zombies and stuff and being totally badass.”

Stiles was confused. “What do they need a guy for, then?”

Miranda stopped short. “Uh... hold on.”

She dug through a few documents on her table and finally gave him a stack of stapled papers. He read through and was actually kind of fascinated by the idea of the commercial. “You seem really excited about this.”

“I am!”, she exclaimed.

“I think it's pretty awesome”, he decided. “When can I audition?”

Miranda smiled at it. “Oh, you don't have to audition. The company said the part is yours if you want it.”

 

* * *

 

The commercial was a complete success. Stiles was taken aback by how successful it was. The company even rehired him for a photo shoot and two follow-up commercials with his female partner, Melanie.

Melanie was nice. At their second shoot, something seemed to fit – maybe it already had after his first shoot and he didn't notice it until their second meeting, but Stiles really liked her.

They went out for a coffee and Melanie seemed to think the same of him, as they went out for dinner a few days later and he kissed her good night on the front steps of her apartment building.

They dated for a few months, during which Stiles performed another play, this time in an even bigger theater in New York where he had asserted himself during the audition process against various other actors who actually had a long and hard career in their past (and Stiles kind of felt bad for them for a moment, but work is work. And if he was able to get such great roles after a comparably short career, he must be pretty good at acting, right?).

After his success in the commercial, Miranda suggested auditioning for a few movies and he was all for it, but Stiles still preferred acting on stage, getting to see the audience's immediate reaction.

 

* * *

 

During one of the premiere of the play, someone threw an apple at Stiles's head. Or at least tried to. Stiles had achieved great reflexes through years of battling supernatural creatures and his year in _secret agent training_. He couldn't see who had thrown it because of the lighting, just that there was suddenly a sturdy piece of fruit flying towards him from the audience when he looked up from a caldron – don't ask. So he easily caught the apple out of the air and said: “Perfect, an apple. This is the last part! Now I can finish the potion!” and bit into it with a smirk.

The apple was half red and half green, so he bit into the green half, having learned from Snow White's mistake.

Thing was, he felt kind of sick about ten minutes later. He staggered around a bit on stage for the rest of the act, ending it with “I think that apple didn't belong into the potion after all” instead of “I must go!”, as it was written in the original script. At least he made the audience laugh.

As soon as the curtain had fallen, he was pulled off-stage by two paramedics and had him sit down on a discarded armchair. The first-aiders flitted around him, asked him how he felt, how the apple had tasted (“like an apple”) and why the hell he had bitten into the green part. They made him eat two slices of bread – for whatever reason – and when he asked for a drink, one of them miraculously produced a carton of milk.

“You should rest, let the understudy carry your role for the rest of tonight's play”, the other suggested.

“No, come on, I can't go halfway through the premiere! What kind of person would that make me?”, Stiles resisted.

A crew member was sort of awkwardly hovering around them and speaking into his headset in hushed voices. Then he directed his attention to Stiles and spoke up: “Break's over in 10. If you're gonna go on, you need to change into your next costume.”

Stiles nodded hastily, shoved the last of the bread into his mouth and power-walked towards the dressing rooms. He was a little woozy, but somehow the bread and milk had done wonders.

The rest of the evening went as well as it could, no further disturbances because of fruit attacks. When he exited his dressing room, the crowd surrounding him was even bigger than the one on the opening night of _Over My Dead Gnome_. Generally, he didn't mind loads of people, but he felt exhausted and hot and sweaty and just wanted to go asleep and not wake up for a week. “I'm sorry, guys, I'm not feeling too well. Can we do this another time? I'm really glad you came, though. I hope you enjoyed the show”, he excused himself.

 

* * *

 

“This, Stiles”, Miranda said, “is why you shouldn't eat the food that random people throw at you!”

She had called him the day after the premiere at ass o'clock in the morning (“Nine A.M. Is a perfectly normal time to call someone!”) to bitch about his little mishap.

“How was I supposed to know it was poisoned?”, he asked, his voice muffled by a pillow.

He could nearly _feel_ Miranda rolling his eyes at him from the other side of town. “Did you at least go to the hospital to get it checked out?”

“No”, he said. “But the paramedics did another examination last night after the show.”

“You should definitely go to the hospital”, she declared and Stiles knew he had lost, even though he was sure that Miranda didn't accept his totally valid argument of “but I'd have to get out of bed _right now like really right exactly now_ if I want to go to the hospital and then get to rehearsals on time”.

“Definitely looking into movies from now on”, Miranda said, sounding like she was thinking out loud. “The worst they can do to you then is scream your ears out.”

 

* * *

 

And she did. While he was still performing his current play, he went to a bunch of auditions for movies and a couple of new TV shows. Melanie was nothing if not supportive of him and he was lucky that she was a model and therefore busy all day long as well or otherwise he would have felt really bad for only seeing her so rarely.

He was just on his way home from an audition, luckily the final staging had been two days ago, when he decided to take a detour and get Starbucks. Stiles was halfway there when he was shoved in a dark alley and someone pointed a knife at him. “Give me your money!”, the attacker said.

“Seriously?”, Stiles couldn't help but blurt out. “Don't you think the ' _Give me all your money!_ ' line has been enough? Be a little creative, come on! Scare me, big boy!”

Stiles didn't know why he had said that. But at least his attacker wasn't expecting it either.

The bad thing, though, was that he didn't hesitate and give Stiles enough time to punch him in the face and flee, but instead he took his knife and stabbed deep into Stiles's thigh.

Stiles cried out and was immediately punched in the face. “Shut the fuck up and give me the money!”

“Dude, you-”, Stiles began to say, but was rewarded with only another stab to his thigh.

“ _Stop stabbing my wallet_!”, Stiles finally cried out.

That made his 'stabber' freeze for a second and then hesitantly move five inches back, probably to give Stiles some space to get his wallet out of his pants.

He took the opportunity to punch his attacker at first in the face, then in the stomach, and then in the genitals. By now, the other man was lying on the floor, crying out of pain – _Shut up, man!_ , Stiles thought, _I'm the one who's got three stab wounds in his thigh!_ \- so Stiles took the knife that had clattered onto the ground at some point and threw it further into the alley, then getting the hell out of there.

He ran out onto the street. It was rather crowded, so he leaned against the wall of a house, clutching his wound while he took out his phone to call 911. “Hello? I would like to report a guy who tried to rob me. And I kind of need an ambulance, too”, he added after a second.

“What happened, Sir?”, the woman on the line asked.

“A guy threatened me with a knife to give him my money and I wasn't fast enough so he stabbed me in the thigh a couple of times.” As if his leg was sentient in and of itself, it started throbbing and he clutched at the wound tighter. “Also, I punched the guy in self-defense.”

“Okay, Sir, where are you at the moment?”, the woman asked in a soothing voice, probably thinking Stiles was losing his mind.

He was pretty calm, though. This situation reminded him of his High School time, where he would spend days and nights out in the woods, fighting evil and living off adrenaline and energy drinks. Oddly enough, he had always been the calm one when everybody had flipped their shit. Mainly because he was usually the one who would get hurt and everybody else had forgotten he was just a squishy human without any cool abilities. But he would stay on the 'battlefield' until the fight was over, then go home – or to Derek's loft, depending on how bad the injury was and what place was closer – and fix himself up; sometimes Derek would even help him and those times Stiles had felt finally like he was needed, like he wasn't replaceable and like it didn't matter that he didn't have any superpowers, the pack liked him anyway. He'd landed in the hospital once or twice and he could barely get any room in to breathe, that's how often the pack had visited. Except for that last time, where Scott was the only one besides his Dad and Stiles's girlfriend at the time that had visited him, and even he looked kind of uncomfortable to be there.

“Sir?”

The woman pulled him out of his thoughts.

“Oh, sorry.” Stiles looked around himself and then told her the address.

“Stay there, Sir, an ambulance is on its way. Do you have anything to put pressure on the wound?”

“Yeah, I have my hoodie”, he said and tucked it off with his now bloody hand while trying to keep the phone near his ear, in case the woman said something. He balled it up and pressed it onto the wound as hard as he could.

“Okay. The ambulance will take around another five minutes to get there. Do you know if your attacker is still where you left him?”

Stiles didn't want to risk looking back into the alley. He wasn't sure he could walk the block there, anyway, with how bad his leg was hurting. He sank down to sit on the sidewalk and lean his back against the wall of a house, trying hard not to wince when he dragged his hoodie painfully along his thigh wound. “I don't know, I punched him pretty hard in the balls, though, I don't think he'd get up so fast.”

“We're sending an officer there. After you've been treated at the hospital, you will also have to answer a few questions.”

He told he understood and then bid goodbye.

A few minutes later he ambulance arrived with sirens and flashing lights as if a house were on fire. He got taken to the hospital, one of the nurses took cut his pants open, and boy did Stiles regret wearing the Batman underwear now, and cleaned the wound. It looked horrible, the three slashes had been executed sloppily (Stiles had thought that was a good thing, but the nurse reassured him that is wasn't – thank you, nurse, you're really good at that whole reassuring thing) and were really deep – Stiles hadn't even noticed that –, so he needed twelve stitches total, a lot of pain medicine and the order to move his leg as little as possible for the next week, then come in to take out the medical threads.

He was pumped full of pain medicine, even though Stiles said he didn't need any, and Melanie was informed to pick him up (and please bring along a loose pair of sweatpants, as his jeans had been cut to pieces). While he waited, he gave his statement to the police. One of the cops clearly held the opinion that it was Stiles's own fault for not just giving his attacker the money, but the other one was on Stiles's side.

When he was about to leave with Melanie, one of the nurses called him back into one of the examination rooms, so he gestured for his girlfriend to sit down in one of the waiting room chairs and followed.

“Mister Stilinski, while we were stitching up your thigh wound, we couldn't help but notice an odd discoloration on the back of your left leg”, the doctor opened.

“What odd discoloration? I don't have any odd discolorations.” Stiles was a bit concerned now.

“It's probably nothing, but I would like to take a closer look at it.”

Stiles sighed and let the man do what he had to do.

After a while of inspecting and poking around, the doctor said. “I'd like to get some blood taken, but you're on a lot of painkillers right now, it would falsify the results. We'll do that when you get your blood taken next week.”

Stiles stood there, a little shocked.

“It's nothing to worry about”, the medic said.

That's what the doctors had said, too, when they had found the first signs of his Mom's cancer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really not where I intended the story to go. All I needed was a reason for the jeans to get destroyed. I don't know why I used thigh-stabbing for that.  
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://heavens-home.tumblr.com) :)  
> The title is from "Poison" by Alice Cooper; I chose that one in regards to what's probably gonna come in the near future if my plot doesn't run away.


	8. So Glad I've Found You

For the next three days Melanie cared for Stiles and pampered him. She only let him out of the bed to go to the bathroom, otherwise he was to stay in his blanket fort, with his thigh a little bit elevated and to rest his leg. She made him food and sometimes even played video games with him when she wasn't working.

She was perfect. Stiles didn't know how he had deserved her.

 

* * *

 

 

A week after the stabbing accident, Stiles went to the doctor to get his stitches out and blood taken. The attending doctor also wanted to take another look at that discoloration on his thigh. Apparently it had spread further and Stiles would have said it was because of something related to the stabbing but the discoloration was on his uninjured thigh.

“Maybe I got thrombosis?”, Stiles suggested. “I haven't really moved all that much for the last week.”

“It might be possible, but it would look differently. And you already had it last week when you came in here the first time. I don't think that a young man like you would easily get thrombosis on the job”, the doctor answered.

“Can we please just get the blood out of me and me away from here? You're kind of freaking me out with your theories”, Stiles whined.

“Okay. Anything I need to know?” The doctor grabbed a needle and a test tube to collect the blood.

Stiles swallowed at the sight of the pointy device. “Not a big fan of needles, to be honest.”

The doctor chuckled while he gripped Stiles's left arm and disinfected a small area. Then he took the needle and held it close to the skin. “All right, on three you're gonna say _blood sausage_.”

“What?”

A small prick, “ow, what was-”, Stiles began and then looked at his arm, where the needle was inside his vein, steadily pumping blood out of his body. Wow what did they need that much blood for?

Okay, that should be enough, shouldn't it?”

“Look up, we don't need you fainting”, the doctor said.

It was weird. Stiles had seen so much blood over the course of his high school career, more than anybody should ever see, he had done his own stitches after a fight, but he was getting weak at the sight of blood being drawn?”

“Just a few more drops.”

 

* * *

 

In the end, they filled four test tubes before they told him he'd get a call as soon as the results were in and sent him on his way. He was feeling a bit woozy, so he went to a McDonald's and got a BigMac and a milkshake.

After he was done with his food he grabbed the remainder of his drink, starting his way to the nearest subway station. His leg was feeling a little sore, he should lay down for a bit. Melanie was working, today, so he texted her that everything was fine and that he didn't need any help so far. They didn't actually live together, but Melanie had been sleeping over the past couple of days to pamper hm. She was actually the sweetest.

Concentrating on his cell phone, Stiles walked around a corner, only to crash right into another person. His milkshake went flying to the ground – such a great loss, he had been a good man – and the girl he had walked into fell as well. Luckily, she didn't fall into the puddle of Stiles's brave soldier.

“God, watch where you're going”, she exclaimed. Stiles held out his hand and when she grabbed it, he helped her up. She was probably sixteen or seventeen, somewhere around that turn, and was wearing a cute little coat, a skirt and warm tights, considering it was winter. She was also wearing boots with a heel and if Stiles didn't knew it was his fault, he would definitely have blamed those shoes for her fall.

“I'm so sorry”, he apologized. He saw that she had dropped her bag, so he picked it up for her. Even though the burger and three quarters of a milkshake had made him feel better, he was still slightly woozy when he was standing back up again, making him pause.

He held out her bag and as she grabbed it, he placed his free hand to his head, willing his headache away.

“Thanks”, she said. “Whow, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I just had like six pints of blood taken”, he answered and took his arm away from his face to smile properly at her.

“Oh my god, you're Stiles Stilinski”, she said and opened her eyes dramatically wide.

“The one and only.” Then he paused. “Well, that I know of. I don't think anybody else who got cursed with a name like mine.”

“Stiles Stilinski isn't that bad of a name”, she amended.

Stiles rolled his eyes fondly. “That's cause it's not my proper first name.” Actually, Stiles liked his real first name, his Mom used to call him by it, and often his Dad, too. But most of the other kids hadn't been able to pronounce it, so he had taken on a nickname.

“Man I can't believe I yelled at you!” She slapped a hand against her forehead. “You're, like, the best actor ever.”

“Aw, thanks. That is so nice”, Stiles answered genuinely. He really liked people who liked him. “Have you seen my last play?”

“Yes, I was at the premiere, it was fantastic! And when that apple flew out of the audience, I thought that was someone booing you, you know, but it was actually part of the play! That was so great!”

Stiles raised both eyebrows at that. Seemed like he was _that_ good at improvising. “Yeah. Part of the play”, he drawled.

“No seriously, that part was awesome! It really looked like you were gonna faint at any moment. Wow.”

A laugh burst out of Stiles at that comment, because that was exactly what _had_ happened.

The girl continued. “by the way, I also loved you in those tampon commercials. Not many guys would have the guts to do that.”

“Yeah, my agent talked me into that one, she was really excited about it. You've also seen _Over My Dead Gnome_?”, he asked.

“Yeah, I was at the premiere there as well.”

“Two premieres and you're what? Sixteen? Seventeen? You must be loaded to afford those tickets. Heck, I couldn't afford those tickets, and I was starring in the play!”

“Eighteen in two weeks, actually. And my Mom works at Marshall Newman's theater and got a lot of contacts, so she pulled some strings and got cheaper tickets.”

“Wait a minute, I talked to someone a couple of months ago who also said their Mom worked at that theater”, Stiles reflected.

“Yeah, that was me”, the girl admitted and blushed a little. She was so cute. Like, not in the I-totally-wanna-bang-you way that Melanie was, but in the You're-a-puppy-and-I-wanna-save-you-from-the-world way.

“That was you? Why didn't you say so?”, Stiles inquired, lifting an eyebrow.

“I thought you wouldn't remember me anyway, so I didn't want to make it awkward.”

“Wait a minute, you were the girl who gave me her phone number, weren't you?”, Stiles remembered and she nodded shyly. “Oh god, I totally forgot about that.”

He tapped the pockets of his jeans, trying to find the note with the girl's number. It was likely it was still in there, he didn't do laundry very often. When he didn't find it, though, he frowned for a moment, before he remembered. “Oh shit. Those were the stabby-pants!”

“What?” The girl looked confused.

“I got stabbed in the thigh the other day and they had to cut my pants to treat the wound, I guess the note was in there”, he thought out loud.

“It's okay, you don't have to make excuses”, she amended. “I didn't think you were gonna call anyway.”

“I'm not making excuses!”, Stiles exclaimed. “I just got the stitches out like an hour ago. You wanna see the scar? No, scratch that, I'm not taking my pants off in public, in front of a stranger.”

That coaxed a laugh out of the girl.

Stiles grabbed his phone and asked: “What's your name?”

“Isabelle.” He typed it into a new contact and then handed her the phone.

“Put your number in it”, he said.

She grabbed it hesitantly. “Really?”

“Sure. I was gonna text you, anyway, but somehow I totally forgot about it.”

Isabelle did as she was told. “Man, I can't believe that I'm putting my number in Stiles Stilinski's phone.”

“Don't get excited, it's not like I'm Andrew Garfield”, he amended.

“I don't know, Andrew Garfield's not that great.” The girl pulled her face into a contemplative expression.

Stiles acted offended. “He's a gorgeous man!”

“Not as gorgeous as you”, she said and blushed further.

Stiles laughed out loud at that. “Don't be a brown-noser”, he joked. When she smiled as well, he knew he hadn't taken it the wrong way. Isabelle was really cool. He was starting to like her.

Suddenly, Stiles's cellphone started to vibrate, still in Isabelle's hand. She looked at the display and asked: “Who is _No!_?” Then she blushed furiously and handed him his phone as quickly as possible, obviously scared he might be angry at him for invading his privacy.

Stiles took a look at the display and it indeed showed 'NO!' as caller ID. That number hadn't tried to reach him since he had left Beacon Hills, and he was happy about that fact. He pressed “Decline call”. It was gonna stay that way for a lot longer; preferably the end of his life.

“Nobody”, he said curtly. “Just some guy I used to know and don't want to talk to.”

“Okay.”

He wanted to shift the topic somewhere else – talk about his wound, tampons, anything, just as long as it wasn't that. But when he was about to open his mouth, the phone began vibrating again. Looking at the display, it said 'Dad' this time, so he thrust his phone at Isabelle. “You pick up!”

Her eyes went a little cross-eyed, as she took it. “But it's your Dad?”

“No it's not, it's him, he's just using my Dad's phone, I'm sure of it.”

“And what if it is your Dad after all, and not that dude?”, she inquired but her finger was already hovering over the “Accept Call”-button.

“We'll find out.”

She took the call and pressed the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

There was a rumbling on the other end of the line, but from where he stood, he couldn't make out if it was his Dad or D- … or not his Dad.

“This is Isabelle. Yes. Who is this?”

Another rumble.

“Yeah, no, not right now.” Isabelle looked at him for confirmation and he nodded, the caller was probably asking if he could talk to Stiles. No matter if it was Dad or not, he didn't want to talk to either right now. “Can I take a message?”, she asked politely.

He heard an angry rumble and then Isabelle took the phone away from her ear with a look of surprise on her face. “He said no and disconnected.”

“Yeah, that was De-”, Stiles stopped himself. He couldn't even think the name, how was he going to say it out loud? “Dave”, he said finally.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, not your fault. Hey, I should probably get going, my thigh's kinda throbbing, it's probably not good to be standing around that long after getting your stitches out”, he said and pocketed his phone.

“Of course”, Isabelle said. “And make sure you don't get stabbed again!”

That pulled a smile on Stiles's face, even though he was kind of in a sour mood now. “I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Finally he met Isabelle. I had that planned for a while.  
> Also the trick to say "blood sausage" when the doctor is about to stab you with the needle is what me and my siblings did/still do, 'cause then you focus on saying the words and not on expecting the stabby pain. Well, the doctor only told me once to say blood sausage, all the other times he asked me to say "Cheese", but blood sausage is so much mor fun, don't you think?  
> Join me on [tumblr](http://heavens-home.tumblr.com)! :)  
> Chapter title is from the song "1 2 3 4" by Plain White T's


	9. I Ain't Got The Time

Stiles was really nervous when he got called to the hospital when his results were back in. He had looked at his thigh in the mirror and the discoloration hadn't spread any further. In fact, it almost seemed to vanish further every time he took a peek.

He hadn't called his father about the stabbing incident yet, but he was sure that the Sheriff had found out about it through police reports and was just waiting for Stiles to call. He also wanted to know the news about his blood before potentially worrying his old man. Stiles's worry was enough for the both of them.

“Is it cancer?”, Stiles asked as soon as he got into the doctor's office and was seated. He couldn't wait for the answer any longer than he had to. 'Cause cancer... that was a subject near and dear to his heart and if he had cancer...

“It's not cancer”, the doctor replied and Stiles let out a sigh of relief.

“It's something else, though”, the doctor continued and Stiles felt his grip tighten around the armrests of the cheap plastic chair he was sitting on.

“There seems to be a high dose of Aconitine in your blood, Mister Stilinski.”

 _Aconitine_? That reminded Stiles of something that had happened years ago.

The doctor probably saw the pondering look on Stiles's face and mistook it for confusion, so he explained: “It's an alcaloid and is mostly found in aconite, commonly known as wolf's bane.”

 _Oh_. So that's why Stiles recognized the word. He had what you could call war flashbacks, to a guy with dark hair and scruff in his face laying in the school parking lot, sitting in the passenger seat of his Jeep, with him in the animal clinic and a wound in his arm that was exuding blue smoke.

Whow. Where had that memory come from? There had been other times here he'd come in contact with wolf's bane, but that time was the only time someone had ever referred to it as Aconite.

“Now the question is”, the doctor said, oblivious to Stiles's thoughts, “how such a huge amount got into your blood. And, more importantly, how you're still alive.”

Stiles felt his mouth fall open. After a few moments of shock and confusion, he asked: “What do you mean how am I still alive?”

“Exposure to Aconitine can lead to death in a matter of minutes or hours. Have you been experiencing any of the symptoms here?”, the doctor asked and handed Stiles a sheet of paper that would tell him all about Aconite poisoning if he bothered to read it. He skimmed over the symptoms – sickness, sweating, confusion, dizziness, headache, paralysis, blurry vision, shallow breathing, coordination problems, prickling.

“Uh, a few – not paralysis, though”, he answered. “Though I've been auditioning for a couple of roles and nervous about hearing back from them, so I think it mostly has to do with that?”

The doctor raised a surprised, yet worried, eyebrow. “We need to start cleaning your blood as soon as possible, to stop the poison from spreading.”

“That'd be great, I don't wanna die this young”, Stiles admitted. That's why he hadn't returned to Beacon Hills in six years.

“Do you have any idea how you could have come to exposure of Aconite? Maybe a strange flower in the work place or at home, food that tasted different from how it should?”

Stiles contemplated his apartment for a few minutes. “I don't think it's a flower. I'm a guy living on my own, I definitely don't buy myself any flowers. And my girlfriend doesn't strike me as the type either to decorate _my_ place when she knows I won't water them.” Then he thought about food. Oh, he had had so much food, but none of it tasted out of the regular. Except...

“I took a bite out of an apple that someone chucked at me during a play and had a kind of funky reaction to it”, he remembered the premiere of his last play. “But that was a couple months back, so that can't be it either.”

The doctor shook his head, though. “It wouldn't surprise me, honestly.”

Well that was a weirdly realistic doctor.

 

* * *

 

Stiles got sent home to pack his bags and was to return to the clinic in the evening, where they would start cleaning his blood and doing all the other stuff to de-poison him. He thought the evening over when he had bitten into that poisonous apple. It kind of reminded Stiles of Adam and Eve, but there hadn't actually been a serpent that told him to eat the apple, he had just done it anyway to spite the asshole that had chucked it at him.

Maybe the assaulter had known that Stiles was going to catch it and bite into it. But then again, what kind of person would coat an apple in wolf's bane stuff in the hopes of Stiles biting into it?

God, Stiles was so tempted to do a research binge on that, but he only had a couple of hours until he was supposed to be back and he wanted to call his Dad an Scott.

 

* * *

 

Stiles chose to call Scott first because he was kind of worried about his Dad's reaction, so he had someone to practice on. Plus, he still had a bone to pick with his friend.

“Hey Stiles!”, was Scott's greeting when he picked up. “We haven't talked in forever!”

Not true. Scott had called him just the other day to tell him that... that he and the Sheriff weren't able to fly out for Stiles's premiere... which had been a couple of months ago. Yeah, it had been a while.

“Okay, first of all, why did you-know-who try to call me from his phone and then again from Dad's phone?” Stiles jumped in the cold water. Not with the poison-thing, but this was very much a question he was interested in finding the answer to.

“Who, Derek?”, Scott asked.

“Scott!” Stiles was exasperated. It was an unspoken law between the two of them to not mention the guy's name. Well, until now, obviously. “Why'd he call?”, he asked after a few beats of silence.

“He got kind of worried. We've been reading a police report that you were stabbed in the thigh and is that true, Stiles?”, Scott asked with worry in his voice. It was clear that he was making his puppy dog eyes at his phone.

“Yes, it's true, not important.” Stiles spoke matter of factly, trying to get back to the point. “And what you're saying is bullshit. If you guys would have been worried about me, you or Dad would have called.”

“But you just said he called with your Dad's phone, how did you know it was him?”, Scott asked.

“Are you kidding me? If Derek Hale tries to call me and I decline and only seconds later my Dad tries to call me, do you really think I'd be like _oh, must be a coincidence_!”

“You realize you just said his name, right?”

 _Shit_.

Stiles purposely hadn't spoken or even thought Derek Hale's name in a long, long time. He had probably made it into a bigger deal than it actually was, but Stiles had been telling himself that if he didn't think of the name of the guy responsible, he also wouldn't have to deal with the memories.

“Stop deflecting”, Stiles finally said.

“No, but seriously, you should see him. He's been antsy, like, all the time for the last couple of weeks, maybe even months. He's worried about you. We all are.”

“Bullshit”, Stiles spat out again. No way was Derek Hale worrying for him, he never had, never would.

“And I'm telling you, it's true.” This was so out of character for Scott. Why was he defending Derek? Yes, the two Alphas had become amicable towards the end of Stiles's time in Beacon Hills, but he Scott had always favored his best friend's position.

“Well, tell him to get lost.” Stiles felt like a child saying that. “Everything's fine with my stabby wound.”

A short silence settled between them, not quite comfortable.

“So is that why you called?”, Scott asked after a while.

“No”, Stiles amended. “But I'm not sure I still wanna tell you the real reason.”

“Come on, Stiles, don't be a baby”, Scott said.

He rolled his eyes and then answered: “Okay. But you have to promise not to tell _him_ , okay?” Back to not saying the name, but whatever. This is a free country and Stiles was an adult, you can't tell him what to do. When Scott said an affirmative, Stiles continued. “I kinda got wolf's bane poisoning and I'm going to the hospital tonight.”

“What?”, Scott said, clearly shocked. “How did that happen?”

Stiles wanted to explain that he didn't know for sure, either, but his best friend didn't let him get a word in an just barrelled on. “Did you have a run-in with werewolves? Why didn't you call sooner? I thought you left Beacon Hills to get away from all of the werewolf stuff?”

Stiles sighed heavily and then said: “I don't know how it happened. No. Because I just found out today. Yes, I did.”

There was a confused moment of silence where Scott was probably trying to connect questions and answers.

Then they talked for a little while longer and before they said their goodbyes, Stiles made Scott promise to not tell Derek about it.

 

* * *

 

Telling his father about the hospitalization went a whole lot easier than explaining it to Scott, because he obviously didn't know about the werewolf schtick and didn't draw any conclusions related to the supernatural. Of course, he also wouldn't tell Stiles how Hale had gotten hold of his phone.

So Stiles packed some clothing and a few books ('cause you're not allowed to use phones and laptops in hospitals, any you somehow have to keep yourself busy, you know?) into a duffle bag before he looked through his apartment, trying to find any wolf's bane flowers, but he ended up being unsuccessful, luckily. At least that meant that Melanie wasn't the one that had poisoned him.

Oh, Melanie! Maybe he should call her and tell her why he wasn't coming over that night. So he did exactly that. She seemed disappointed that she wasn't going to see him, but otherwise not concerned. Which was weird, because Stiles had freaking aconite poisoning.

While he was waiting for the subway train, he also texted Isabelle and told her about his state of health. It had been two weeks since she put her number in his phone and they usually had a constant stream of texts going on, she was developing to become a good friend and immediately concerned for his well-being.

 

* * *

 

A week or so later, all was well again Stiles was discharged from the hospital but had to come in for a few check-ups. Isabelle and Miranda had visited him a couple of times respectively, and Melanie was there once to drop off some more clothing (mainly underwear, because Stiles had been running out).

It was kind of uncomfortable because he was feeling pretty weak, with his arm connected to a machine steadily pumping blood in and out of his body and not able to do much other than lying around.

Miranda had told him that he had been chosen for a minor role in one of the movies he had auditioned for and that he was shortlisted for the TV show he had auditioned for on the day he had been stabbed in the thigh. Stiles was happy, he really was, he just wasn't strong enough to show his enthusiasm other than letting out a weak “wohoo!”.

Derek tried to reach call him a couple more times – Dad or Scott must have caved and told him anyway – and Stiles contemplated getting a new number, but the effort-use-ratio wasn't good enough to be worth it.

So when Stiles was back up on his feet and well-rested, he immediately went to Miranda's office to get the things settled for the movie. Filming would be in Texas and would start in about a month and a half. He was so excited! When he had been little, Stiles had sometimes thought about what it would feel like to star in a movie, and now it was coming true!

He and Isabelle drank to that. Well, she wasn't allowed to legally drink and he still was on some pills so alcohol was a strict no-go for him as well, so they sat in a diner and had pizza and soda until it was late in the evening and Isabelle had to go home because she had classes the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this one has kinda been an in-betweener's chapter, but I needed to further Stiles's relationship with Isabelle a bit, even though I didn't really do a great job at it.  
> I'm also always kind of all over the place handling discourse time vs. story time, I always want to do time-lapses but then I get caught up in unimportant events ;_;  
> Also, I want to point out that I'm only studying Maths and English and even though I had 3 years of Chemistry at school, I don't know anything about Aconitine and how it affects the body, all I know is what I got from Wikipedia and Google. The discoloration of Stiles's skin is intentional, though. ;)  
> I hope you made it through anyway (which you did, if you're reading this, well done!), and I just wanna tell ya that the secrent-agent stuff will be coming up soon :)  
> Title from "Rehab" by Amy Whinehouse  
> (I always kinda match them to the story/mood of the chapter and this was the only one I could think of that marginally fit)


	10. How I'll Survive

A couple of days before Stiles was to fly to Texas, he and Melanie broke up. Over Isabelle, of all people. She accused him of cheating on her with the girl and no matter how often Stiles said it wasn't true, and that Isabelle actually had a boyfriend at the moment, she wouldn't accept it. Melanie merely said that Isabelle had always seemed sneaky to her and she couldn't believe that Stiles would do that to her. Which was funny, because Isabelle had said the same about Melanie the other day in the hospital when Melanie had only come in for five minutes to drop of clothes.

It was kind of a bummer on Stiles's mood because he had really liked her, but she had been really distant throughout the last month or so and he didn't really _love_ her, so he couldn't be too sad.

Isabelle cheered Stiles up and they snuck into a club (“I'm 24, I don't need to sneak into a bar” - “Shut up, it's more fun like this!”) and got drunk.

 

* * *

 

Stiles was in a cab from the airport to his hotel, when his phone rang. “Mister Stilinski?”, a voice asked and it sounded vaguely familiar.

“Yeah, who's this?”, he asked. The caller ID had shown a number he didn't recognize.

“McQuinn”, the voice said – and that's where he remembered it from! The man had become his boss after Stiles was done with his secret agent training. Wow, already a year had passed. “Can we talk?”

Stiles had no idea what he would be approached with, but he knew that they couldn't talk about it in a cab. If the driver was a werewolf – let's hope he's not – he would be able to listen to the whole conversation without even straining his ears, and even if he wasn't, he'd probably be able to piece some major things together by listening to what Stiles would say.

So Stiles deflected: “Oh, shit, yeah, I totally forgot about that. I'm in a cab right now and my documents are in the trunk, I'll call you back when I'm at the hotel, okay?”

A beat of silence, then: “Okay. Don't take too long, I got other stuff to do.” A click, then the call was disconnected.

“If you want to, we can make a stop and you can get your documents out of the trunk”, the cab driver said.

Yup, definitely a werwolf. Or another supernatural creature with super-hearing.

“No, thanks. I'm good”, Stiles answered politely. “I'll have more peace in the hotel, and we're nearly there, anyway.” The cab driver seemed to be a bit let down because he wasn't able to listen in, but Stiles didn't care.

As soon as he was settled into his room at the hotel, he peeked into the corridor to make sure nobody was able to listen in, so he called back McQuinn.

“Stilinski here, sorry about before”, Stiles said when the other man picked up.

“You're in Austin right now, am I right about this information?”, his boss cut to the chase.

“Yes, Sir. For about two months.”

“Good. We've got a case.”

“For me?”, Stiles squeaked out. That was his first case. After a year of inactivity, he had thought that they had forgotten about him.

“Is there somebody else on the line?”, Mr. McQuinn asked and Stiles could nearly feel the annoyance coming off him in waves.

“I don't know, is there?”, Stiles shot back, just to be an ass. A second later, he bit on his tongue. _Damn, Stilinski, don't talk back to your superior, you idiot!_

“No, the line is secure.”

“So, what do I have to do?”, Stiles asked after a moment and peaked through the curtains of his window. He would love to go on the balcony right now, but he wasn't dumb enough to do that. Out in the open, his room neighbors could easily listen in on the conversation and he wasn't ready to blow his cover before he had even finished his first job.

“You will be meeting your new partner tomorrow night. From now on, the two of you will work together until one of you dies.”

Stiles swallowed hard at that. He knew he could easily die as a secret agent, he'd seen enough movies and experienced too much during his year of training to forget that. But then again, he had been putting his life on the brink weekly in Beacon Hills and hadn't known nearly as much as he knew now. Stiles quickly regained his wits and commented sarcastically: “Wow, great prospects. So, where will I be meeting him?”

Mr. McQuinn gave him an address. Or not really an address, rather an exact description on how to get there from his hotel. Stiles grabbed a map and followed the way, declaring “Hey, that's on my set!”

Stiles's boss made an exasperated sound and if he had been Stiles's age, he probably would have said 'No shit, Sherlock'.

“But there's a couple of people walking around on there, especially on the first day of filming. How will I recognize him?”, Stiles asked.

“Your partner will be wearing a white shirt, jeans and a flower. You will also be wearing a flower. Got it?”, McQuinn declared and Stiles couldn't help but laugh. Because the flower thing? That was just way too cliché. When Stiles said as much, his boss audibly breathed in and Stiles got ready for a rant.

“Stilinski! It's a movie set, nobody will look odd there and since it's spring, nobody will ask questions if somebody accessorizes with flowers. Yet, everybody will be too lazy to do it themselves. So you'll do as I say!”

“All right, all right, boss.” Stiles even held up his free hand in an _I'm giving up, don't hurt me_ gesture, before he realized that McQuinn couldn't see him, so he dropped it again.

“Try to be there at 9 PM. I know you, though, so I'll tell your partner you'll be a bit late.”

Another click and the call disconnected.

Stiles hadn't missed the fact that McQuinn hadn't gone into specifics about the gender, even after Stiles had assumed his partner to be male.

 

* * *

 

The first day of shooting was awesome. Well, he'd had to get out of bed butt-early but he didn't mind that. He had met all his co-stars during the read-through in New York two weeks before and talked to those that were in make-up the same time as he was.

Stiles was really nervous for his first scene but he quickly loosened up and realized that it wasn't much different from stage acting, you only have to concentrate more on your facial expressions since the cameras were often right in your face, but Stiles didn't have any problem with that, since he was a generally very expressive guy.

Throughout the day Stiles texted Scott a lot if the time allowed it. The guy was really excited, as if he were the one to shoot the movie (let's be real, though, Scott couldn't keep a straight face to save his life), plus he was still concerned with Stiles's well-being.

“Aww, texting your girlfriend?”, Nadine said and sat down next to him on the ale-bench during lunch. She was one of the other actors playing a minor character. He was going to have to kiss her at the end of the movie, but that was okay with Stiles, he'd done plenty of kisses on stage.

“Naah, don't have one. I'm texting my best friend.” She raised an eyebrow at that, probably because he had told her about his relationship with Melanie at the read-through. “We broke up”, he explained.

“Aww, come here, my sweet baby”, she said and laid her arms around his neck, effectively dragging him onto her chest and nuzzling the back of his head.

“Dude, let me go or they're gonna have to redo my hair!”, Stiles exclaimed and shoved her playfully.

“You look like you just got out of bed”, Nadine said with a laugh in her voice.

“And yet, it took Fred half an hour to create this hair style. He could have just told me to not comb my hair today”, Stiles muttered.

The day went on smoothly after that, and when the director wrapped up for the day at around 8.30 PM, which was lucky for Stiles because none of the crew members looked at Stiles funnily when he still hung around set at 9 PM. He changed back into his normal clothes and picked up a daisy to put behind his ear. Yeah, he looked like a douche, but at least he looked like a douche trying to woo a girl and not like a secret agent about to meet his partner by wearing a suit and tie with a rose or lily in the button hole of his breast pocket.

The meeting point that McQuinn had described the day before was actually behind the trailer that served the food throughout the day, as he had found out in the morning.

By the time he got there, he was all of two minutes late, but only because one of the crew members had stopped him and chatted him up, so there was already a figure standing by the meeting point.

And that was definitely a woman he was meeting, even though the person had their back to Stiles, because she had long hair. And not _heavy metal fan_ -long hair or _computer science student_ -long hair, but really soft and shiny girl hair. Also, the person had a really dainty figure and Stiles thought that it wasn't even a woman, just a girl. Aww, man, why did Stiles have to finish college before he was able to start training and that girl could just pop right in?

As he came closer, he saw that she was wearing jean shorts and a white flowy tank top that barely reached the waistband of her shorts in the front but almost completely covered her butt in the back, and it had a turquoise ink stain on the left seam.

Stiles knew that shirt, it had a picture of the Manhattan skyline on the front, he'd seen it enough times.

He came closer to the girl and he tapped her on the shoulder, spinning her around. When she faced him, he saw that she was indeed wearing a flower, worked into her necklace.

“Isabelle?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from "A Year Without Rain" by Selena Gomez.  
> Damn it, I'm starting to have problems coming up with the names for the chapters.  
> Though I'm actually quite happy about keeping the discourse time-story time ratio in my favor.  
> Also, thank you for bearing with me and commenting on every chapter, it's the best part of my day :) <3


	11. Startin' To Sound Good

“Isabelle, what the hell are you doing here?“, Stiles asked, seeing his best friend staring back at him with a look of shock, the same look that's probably all over his own face.

“Stiles, why are you-”, she began, but then interrupted herself and tugged the daisy from behind Stiles's ear. “Is that a flower? Stiles, why do you have a flower behind your ear?”

“Uh... I was supposed to meet someone here”, Stiles answered. “Are you that someone?”

“Damn, why didn't McQuinn tell me I was meeting you?” She crossed her arms.

“How?”, was all Stiles could utter. The girl was eighteen years old, had been a minor until a few weeks ago and was currently in her last days of high school. When had she had the time to go into training? How was she covering her absence with the school? Because it was definitely a school day.

“Shut up, Stilinski, you haven't told me about your real job, either”, she just says, evidently knowing what he was thinking about.

“And rightly so. Wouldn't be a good undercover agent otherwise.”

“I'm actually really glad you're my partner”, Isabelle said and delivered a light punch to Stiles's left bicep. “I don't know how I would have avoided meeting you on set.”

“What's your cover story, anyway? What did you tell your school? Your parents?”

“I'm the director's on-set assistant. And I graduated early”, Isabelle explained.

Stiles made an impressed face.

“Hey, let's go somewhere else, behind the food trailer is kind of too out in the open for this”, Isabelle suggested.

 

* * *

 

They went to Stiles's hotel room – he luckily didn't have to share, thank you Miranda – and talked. Isabelle explained that she had spent seventh and eighth grade in a private military school that focused their afternoon lessons on training their students into secret agents. And Stiles thought that would be pretty cool, he would have loved to go to a place like that, but his Dad probably wouldn't have been okay with that. When he said so, she told him that while she enjoyed the opportunity, she hadn't had much of a choice at the time, since she had been a witness to an incident she wasn't allowed to talk about and it had been either death or secret agent life for her – and that was a choice easily made.

“So how did you get that Aconitine poisoning?”, Isabelle asked eventually. “Was that during a job?”

“Nope”, Stiles popped the _p_. “Someone threw an apple at me on stage and I bit into it, seems like they glazed it with Aconite powder or something like that.”

For some reason, though, Stiles thought it unwise to tell the girl that this was his first job as a secret agent. He just had a feeling it would bite him in the ass later on if he did.

“Really? You should look into who that was, don't theaters usually have cameras installed for that kind of stuff?”, Isabelle said. And _hey_ , he should do that! Why hadn't Stiles thought of that? He made a mental note to ask Miranda to look into it for her, even though she'd bitch about it (“I'm your agent, Stiles, not your personal assistant! If you can't do it yourself, hire someone else for it!”).

“Good idea. So, why are we officially meeting now? We gotta whack someone?”, Stiles asked instead.

“No! How often have you killed somebody to talk about that so casually?”, Isabelle asked. But she wasn't appalled, she seemed more... in awe. And wasn't that awful?

“Just one. But I've seen enough people get killed, kind of loses the noteworthiness after a while.” Never the terror though, never the terror. And the hours of psychiatric counseling he'll need in about thirty years ( _if he survives until then_ , Stiles pointedly doesn't think). “So?”

“Oh, right. McQuinn gave me a box with the assignment inside. Said you had the key”, she grabbed something out of her bag. Was she actually kidding him? She just carried that around in her bag? God damn it, Isabelle.

“I don't have a key.” Then he saw that there was a display, about a square inch in size. Stiles rolled his eyes and pressed his thumb against it, letting the scanner work its magic.

The case sprung open and revealed a strip of paper, it looked like one of those notes you would give to your crush in elementary school, one that said “Do you want to date me? - Yes. - No. - Maybe.”

Isabelle picked it up and turned it over, reading aloud: “Get the dog, take it to Jorgio's.” Underneath that was an address.

 

* * *

 

They immediately started their research. It was kind of sad that they had to do it themselves, Isabelle complained, she said she had been a field agent only during her high school career, but then again that had usually been exposing drug dealers and catching robbers and that kind of stuff.

“That address doesn't exist”, Isabelle said after a few minutes.

“Of course it does”, he said and typed it into Google Maps. After a few seconds, it _did_ give out a result for the street, though the little pointy thing landed on a parking garage near a harbor.

“I'm pretty sure that nobody's keeping a dog in a parking garage”, Isabelle muttered. After a while she said: “Dude, you typed in the wrong house number” and pointed at the field that showed 218 instead of 281.

After they changed the mistake, it still showed the same address, so Stiles decided: “All right, let's call it a day, we both gotta get up early tomorrow.”

 

* * *

 

The next day was hard for Stiles, he was on set continuously from 8 AM to 2 AM the next day because some night shots had to be done and his scenes were spread out over the whole day. It was fun, but tiresome. He mostly spent his free time eating, napping or looking into the address they got on his phone.

Turns out that 281 was the number of a boat that was anchored in the harbor; and it was a pretty big boat, more like a yacht. He found a picture from when it was christened, turns out the boat's name was – no, not “the dog” - _Paolo_. Stiles was kind of disappointed when he found that out, he had been looking forward to kidnapping a boat, though they wouldn't have been able to get far away, since it was in a closed-off lake.

When Stiles saw Isabelle, he told her to find out who the boat belonged to and when he saw her three hours later, she said. “Robert Callager, multi-millionaire with a trophy wife, one daughter – twenty-three years old – and one son – 19 years old. You're welcome.”

“How?”, he asked her after she had finished.

“It should be illegal how thorough the guys here do research for you if you tell them the director said it's urgent.” Isabella shrugged and smiled mock-innocently.

Stiles was, once again, impressed. He had used to be the research guy in Beacon Hills and would have been really turned on if he had been presented with finding that information out back in his High School life, but right now he couldn't be happier that Isabelle's worker bees had done the job.

“Also, they're hosting a party for their yacht club on Thursday night”, she added.

“ _Stilinski_ , we need you back here in three!”, a crew member shouted from one of the stages.

Stiles shouted back “Coming!” and then turned back to his friend. “We're _so_ going to this party!”

But before Isabelle could answer, Stiles was already halfway to the stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I was absent for so long, but I had to write 2 term papers for university, one due end of July, the other due to the beginning of August, then there was my birthday and I was on vacation for the last 9 days without internet. This is just a short part and it was actually part of the next chapter but I didn't see that I hadn't posted it yet which is why I split it. A bigger one, about 3000 words long I think is coming up, I just need to finish it, I have the chapter title laid out since weeks ago and everything :)  
> Chapter Title from "Party For two" by Shania Twain.


	12. Pretending to Be a Duchess... and a Prince

Thursday came sooner than expected. The work days were hard for Stiles, but he expected that they would be even harder for Isabelle, doing stuff that the director felt too important to do himself and bringing Lattes.

Stiles had been kept until 2 AM the night before and was called back on set at 10. Luckily, the director let them all go at 9 PM _(“The_ Simpsons comes on at 10, you think I'm gonna miss that?”), giving Stiles an hour to get ready before he was to meet with Isabelle.

He had brought a suit with him, though he wondered what people generally wore to a yacht party, especially to one hosted by a millionaire. After a few minutes of debating he decided to forgo the suit jacket and wore the black suit pants and waistcoat over a purple dress shirt.

Isabelle looked stunning as well, she was wearing a cocktail dress that looked way too skimpy for Stiles's taste, but he refrained from saying anything, he was not her father.

“And how are we gonna get into the party?”, Stiles asked after the cab started driving towards their destination.

“I've got two foldable grappling-hook rifles in my purse that we're gonna use to sneak onto the boat, like James Bond”, Isabelle said while tapping on her fist-sized purse and grinning mock-seriously.

Stiles raised an eyebrow at that.

“Naa, we'll make something up, sneak on the guest-list and enter the party like the real guests.”

Soon enough Stiles and Isabelle reached the yacht harbor and after paying the driver, they followed the noise and other party-goers toward the boat.

The pair of them reached the walkway leading onto the _Paolo_ ; a small queue had formed in front of a young waiter holding a clipboard, next to him stood a bodyguard with muscles, sunglasses and a scowl that might put Derek to shame.

A couple of girls got turned away, obviously not on _the list_. They took an early walk of shame along the queue back to the street and Stiles watched them leave. When he turned back around, he saw that it was almost their turn. “Are you gonna tell me what we'll do? Is this winging it enough?”

Isabelle smiled and said: “Follow my lead.”

The guests in front of them were led up the stairs to the yacht and the waiter turned towards them. “Name?”, he said in a bored voice, he'd obviously been doing his job for quite a while now.

Isabelle spoke up. “I'm Amanda, Duchess of Rabat, and this” - she pointed to Stiles - “is James, Prince of Monaco. Tiffany invited us personally, though it was on short notice so she probably wasn't able to put us on the list.”

Stiles stared at her. Prince? Hadn't she set the bar a bit high with that? How the hell was Stiles supposed to keep that lie afloat?

The waiter looked down at his clipboard and flipped through a few pages. “Hold on.” He said after a moment and went on to murmur something towards the bodyguard, before leaving him with Stiles and Isabelle and climbing the stairs to the boat.

Stiles looked at the bodyguard and smiled at him awkwardly. When he didn't budge, Stiles turned his attention back to the waiter who was now, by the looks of it, being yelled at by a girl around Stiles's age. That was probably Tiffany, Robert Callager's daughter. She glanced at Stiles and Isabelle from time to time and finally slapped her partner of conversation over the back of his head and stormed to the exit. Stiles could only be impressed by how quickly she made it down the stairs in her high heels.

“Prince James!”, she shouted as soon as she made it onto the walkway. “It's such an honor that you could come!” The girl grinned at him and leaned in, obviously expecting a kiss on the cheek. Stiles didn't let it go that far and grabbed her hand, kissing the back of it.

“I'd be a fool to miss it”, he smiled back. “This is my cousin Amanda”, he introduced Isabelle and the two of them exchanged kisses as if they had known each other since earliest childhood.

“I am so sorry about your wait, your highness. You try to hire the best but even with the promise of _the best_ they only do a sloppy job, isn't that right, Kyle?” Tiffany turned towards the waiter who tried to look as small as possible.

“Hey, hey, he's only doing his job”, Isabelle interrupted and Stiles immediately glared at her, trying to convey _this is royalty talking to high class, you're not supposed to defend the working crowd_.

“I mean”, she added, “he couldn't have known that we would come since you didn't put us on the list.” The girl smiled awkwardly, but Tiffany seemed to buy it. She led them up to the yacht and Stiles had to stifle a noise of impression, because that's what he was: impressed.

“I'm sure you're used to much higher standards in Monaco, my prince”, Tiffany said and grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing tray, gesturing for Stiles and Isabelle to do the same. “but I tried to work with what I had.”

“Oh, you organized this party?”, Stiles asked. After an excited nod, he decided to lay on the charm. “It looks beautiful. But so do you, might I add.”

He took a step back to enjoy the view. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Isabelle slink away, most definitely to either flirt with a rich dude or find _the dog_.

In front of him, Tiffany blushed. “Thank you. I matched the accent color to my dress, I hope it's not too much.”

“I think it's perfect.” Apparently that was the right thing to say, because the girl twirled around in her small dress and _accidentally_ landed a lot closer to Stiles than she had stood before.

“So you're a prince, huh?”

“Yup.” Stiles popped the last consonant.

“What's it like being a prince? Is it like in the fairy tales?”

“No, it's not. It's a lot of traveling around, talking to politicians and important businessmen.” He obviously didn't know that, but he guessed it to be like that.

“But you're knight, aren't you? Fighting with sword and shield, right?”

She sounded so hopeful that Stiles couldn't help but laugh. “I think you're confusing this with the medieval times. I can use a gun and drive a tank but I don't imagine I could handle riding a horse while keeping the enemy at bay with a sword.”

“That's awful. Then what's so special about being a prince?” Tiffany sounded awfully disappointed.

“Having the prospects of reigning a kingdom, I guess”, Stiles smiled. “But you don't care about being a prince. You wanna be a princess, don't you?”

The girl tried to hide her blush by taking a sip from her champagne flute. Stiles thought he heard her mumble _Maybe yours?_ but couldn't be sure.

His phone pinged and he grabbed it out of his jacket, looking at the message he had gotten from Isabelle. _Talking to the son. Try to find out about the dog_ , she wrote.

He had just exited the message app when his phone was taken from his hands. He looked up and saw Tiffany handling it, scrolling through the contacts.

“Why do you have your father listed as _Dad_ and not as _king_?”, she said, now typing something, probably her own number.

“Because to me, he's my dad first, the king second”, he answered, patting his back on the inside for not naming him _Sheriff_.

“Aww, that's so sweet”, she said and handed the phone back with a smile. Stiles pocketed it and looked around.

The music had slowed down and a few couples were dancing in the center of the deck. “Do you care for a dance?”, he asked and held out his hand.

The girl lit up like a five year old and reached for him, answering “Of course!”

They joined the other couples and danced in silence for a few minutes, listening to the music and the noise of the crowd. It was actually quite nice and Stiles felt almost bad for living the lie of the Monacan prince – hell, he didn't even know if there _was_ a Monacan prince.

He remembered Isabelle's text and decided to cut to the chase. “Do you have dogs?”, he asked.

Tiffany jumped back a bit at the sudden question and Stiles had to jerk her closer again in order to avoid a crash with another couple twirling around. He noticed that she stayed as close to him as possible, almost draping herself over him. The girl was not very subtle.

“Why are you asking?”, she breathed.

“It's just”, Stiles explained, “I have a slight dog hair allergy and I'm starting to get an itch, you know?”

“I am so sorry, your highness-”

“Call me James”, he interrupted.

“-James. My brother Andy is in love with them and always visits the animal shelter because Daddy won't let him have one. I guess he got the dog hairs all over here. Again, I am so sorry.”

“It's okay”, he smiled and twirled her around, as he heard his phone ping again with a message. Conveniently, the song ended and the crowd clapped for the musicians. “Should I get you a refreshment?”

“That would be nice.”

Stiles left her and went to the bar, filling two glasses with punch. He took out his phone and look at the message.

_Got anything?_ , Isabelle wrote.

_The brother's a big fan of dogs. Ask him about it_ , he texted back.

“Who are you texting all the time?”, Tiffany said, grinning, and laid a hand on his right bicep when he turned around to head back to her.

Stiles startled and gave her the glass. “Your drink.”

“Am I too boring for you?”, she asked coily. Wow, Stiles really needed to use the lie of being a prince if he ever needed to get laid quickly.

“Of course not. My cousin, the Duchess, is just worried about my well-being.”

“Oh, we're just having a bit of fun, nothing to worry about”, she answered and raised her glass.

They clinked their glasses together and took a sip.

Stiles and Tiffany went back to dancing and talking, this time, he was only trying to distract her and waiting for a message from Isabelle, hopefully saying _I got the dog, let's get outta here_.

After a few songs, he took a breath in, wanting to say something, when Tiffany said. “Oh, just kiss me already!”

Stiles uttered a surprised “What?”, but before he could get his wits back, her mouth was already on his. After a few beats of shock, he returned the kiss. It was pleasant, but Stiles didn't feel anything beyond the physical. Tiffany obviously knew what she was doing, because the kiss turned wild quickly. She put her hands into his hair and tugged faintly and Stiles felt like he was supposed to grab her butt, but he didn't want to, so he slowly rubbed his hands down her back.

“Tiffany?”

The two of them broke apart suddenly at the utterance and they turned to the source of the word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been planning this chapter for _SO_ long, you don't even know. Also, this was actually the first half of the next chapter 'cause I wanted the whole mission in one chapter but it was gonna be too long so here you go!  
>  Sorry for the long time of not posting, whoopsie. Also sorry for no Derek as far as I can remember (I wrote this in the middle of August) but I'm pretty sure they'll meet in around 3 chapters-ish?! Don't hold me to it, though.
> 
> Title is from "Starlight" by Taylor Swift :)


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